Sports

Worn-out Midgets

They can be forgiven for not even wanting to play a baseball video game at the moment.
The Sherwood Park Midget AAA Athletic baseball team has had its fill of the sport after undergoing a marathon of diamond demands in a short span earlier this month.
The A’s finished up the regular season portion of the 14-team Norwest League schedule in fourth place with a record of 27-12, good enough to send them through to the eight-team provincial finals, losing out in the gold medal game to the Parkland Twins.
However, their second-place status meant that they were awarded a berth as Alberta’s representative in the Western Canada Baseball Association Midget AAA Championships in Steinbeck, Manitoba.
The main problem was that in order to make it to the tournament, they had to leave at 6 a.m. the morning after playing in the provincial final — an almost unheard-of turnaround.
With a few St. Albert add-ons in tow due to not being able to use their 19-year-olds, the A’s actually did a decent job adjusting to having to play another gruelling tournament on the heels of just completing one.
The A’s won their first game against the host Steinbeck squad before losing to Manitoba in extra innings.
“Manitoba ended up playing in the championship game, and I think if we had won that one, it would have been us that got there,” said A’s head coach Matt Hammond.
The Park players beat Saskatchewan 2 by a 16-9 score and then also got past Saskatchewan 1.
They would go on to fall to the Langley Blaze out of B.C. by a 6-0 score, missing out on an appearance in the finals due to losing that last contest by more than three runs.
“The kids played really well overall,” Hammond said, admitting that they were a pretty pooped group by the end.
“For some of them it was their 18th game in 14 days — the guys who went to the Canada Summer Games. For the other guys, it was like their 10th game in seven days. Through in a 13-hour bus ride as well. They were pretty tired by the end. Even our last game, they weren’t very lively in the dugout. They were just tired. I was proud of how they played and how they battled, especially considering how tired they were. We just couldn’t pull it off in the end.”
Hammond said that finishing second in Alberta and competing well at Westerns was a testament to a team which he thinks has even bigger things in store for it next season.
“Nobody really expected us to do much and we ended up getting silver in provincials, so I think it was a heck of a good season,” he said. “I’m proud of the kids and the season that we had. We are not losing too many guys. I think we have a better chance to win it next year. I’m very excited for next year.”
The Athletics have earned their way into the Westerns four times in the last seven years, winning gold medals in the event in 2011 and 2012, before adding silver last year when the event was hosted in Sherwood Park.
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